Ableton Forum

sporkles wrote:I loved Tarkovsky's Solaris as well as Stalker (which is one of my all-time favourites). Stalker is pretty different from the book, Roadside Picnic (which I never finished, as the English translation is really bad); the film is a lot less on the nose; it leaves more for your imagination.

Stalker is my favourite movie ever... I'm the lucky owner of the double DVD release with some present interviews of the Stalker's film crew and other curiosa... According to them (Tarkovsky passed away long ago unfortunately to confirm those stories...) the original movie (filmed on decent Kodak negative...) was censored and big parts of it were deleted. Those parts were very typical sci-fi, with Alexander Kaidanovsky acting like Harrison Ford - very extrovertic without any depth in character. Tarkovsky didn't give up though and he decided to finish the movie on the ORWO (made in GDR) negative that he spared from other movie. Kaidanovsky was during that session heavily sick and depressed and quality of the negative was very bad creating that outstanding mood we can enjoy watching Stalker today...
And censorship let the movie to be finished because they considered it as worthless (and possibly the most important nail to the Tarkovsky's coffin - they didn't like that appreciation Tarkovsky got among western critics...).
I read the book of Strugaccki brothers when I was 10. The Stalker for me is completely disconnected from the book.
Great dispute about the necessity of faith...
Just listen to the molecular physicist and the Higgs boson theory...
Tarkovsky's Stalker rules (even as the effect of coincidence...)...
Skål!

Stalker is a great film, but also in many ways - like Solaris - deeply flawed. Oh my. Tarkovsky absolutely GUTTED what is, in my mind, one of the best scifi novels ever written.

The history put forth on the DVD is mostly SHIT and revisionist. Tarkovsky, in fact, had very little in the way of censorship on this film and was mostly his own worst enemy. He shot an enormous amount of footage but had to burn most of it because it wasn't developed in the correct way at the lab. He reshot pretty much the entire thing - making a very different film than the original according to Tarkovsky himself. He was also an enormous temperamental pain in the ass, and fired the first cinematographer and numerous other crew.


It's amazing to me that Roadside Picnic hasn't yet been made into a proper film. I'd love to see Neill Blomkamp from District 9 take a crack at doing it up right. I guess I'll have to suffer through 3 more Spiderman reboots before someone gets their head out of their ass.

Prometheus will be out on DVD on 10/11/12 - as indicated in the film credits at the end.

arachnaut wrote:Prometheus will be out on DVD on 10/11/12 - as indicated in the film credits at the end.

Who cares?
Due to very high expectations I had (Alien prequel directed by Ridley himself...) and my painful disappointment after release I consider that crap much worse than AvP2...
It seems that humankind's mental degradation isn't that serious outside U.S. and A.
While most European movie sites wiped the floor with that crap, American ones started filling all holes in the plot with almost religious devotion turning this 3D brainless sci-fi defecation into genuine biblical message.
Scary shit...
No wonder they vote for Mickey Mouse...
Skål...

watched once....will not watch again

Goddard wrote:

arachnaut wrote:Prometheus will be out on DVD on 10/11/12 - as indicated in the film credits at the end.

Who cares?
Due to very high expectations I had (Alien prequel directed by Ridley himself...) and my painful disappointment after release I consider that crap much worse than AvP2...
It seems that humankind's mental degradation isn't that serious outside U.S. and A.
While most European movie sites wiped the floor with that crap, American ones started filling all holes in the plot with almost religious devotion turning this 3D brainless sci-fi defecation into genuine biblical message.
Scary shit...
No wonder they vote for Mickey Mouse...
Skål...

Actually, nearly every popular US movie site - including the venerable AICN - were savage with this film. But please...don't let me get in the way of yet another anti-American rant.

Ridley Scott is English.

Trouble with him is some of his films are great, and some of them are really not.

I care about this film and anyone else who takes the time to post must care at least a bit, positively or negatively.

I've seen this movie 5 times in the Theaters: 3 times in Imax 3D once in Real 3D and once on a plain small screen. I bought the Art of Prometheus book and I look forward to the audio commentary on the DVD when it comes out - I pre-ordered it from Amazon a long while back when I bought the art book.

I actually liked it best on the small screen - the images were clearer. The 3D effects are not all that extreme anyway even thought it was completely shot in 3D.

The visuals are stunning. The acting is pretty good. The story line is creative and controversial. There are a lot of scenes that don't make sense (scientifically) and there's a bit too much gore, but there is also so many stunning vistas.

The audio trailer re-mix music from 'Judge and Jury' by audiomachine in Deus Ex Machine is not in the film, but the soundtrack is quite nice, still. I wish it were more aggressive.

This has all the signs of a cult classic, but it is also quite well-made compared to the usual B-movie cult film.

EDIT: By the way if no one cares, why are there 383 posts on this thread? Is there any other film in the forum topics?

arachnaut wrote:I care about this film and anyone else who takes the time to post must care at least a bit, positively or negatively.

I've seen this movie 5 times in the Theaters: 3 times in Imax 3D once in Real 3D and once on a plain small screen. I bought the Art of Prometheus book and I look forward to the audio commentary on the DVD when it comes out - I pre-ordered it from Amazon a long while back when I bought the art book.

I actually liked it best on the small screen - the images were clearer. The 3D effects are not all that extreme anyway even thought it was completely shot in 3D.

The visuals are stunning. The acting is pretty good. The story line is creative and controversial. There are a lot of scenes that don't make sense (scientifically) and there's a bit too much gore, but there is also so many stunning vistas.

The audio trailer re-mix music from 'Judge and Jury' by audiomachine in Deus Ex Machine is not in the film, but the soundtrack is quite nice, still. I wish it were more aggressive.

This has all the signs of a cult classic, but it is also quite well-made compared to the usual B-movie cult film.

EDIT: By the way if no one cares, why are there 383 posts on this thread? Is there any other film in the forum topics?

Are you American by any chance?

Goddard wrote:Are you American by any chance?

I'm not sure what that means or why it has anything to do with this thread. I live in Sunnyvale, CA in the US. Was born in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. But I feel more like a Japanese-Hindu-Buddhist. I think we are all pretty much the same - and we live in a profound state of Ignorance. But surely, what I write stands by itself and is just my opinion.

You can look here to see all about me if you are curious or do a search for 'arachnaut'; I get around:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/109292859448286386610/about


EDIT: updated signature and forum profile.

EDIT #2: let's not devolve into this: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 81#5089781

Cool meteor collection.

arachnaut wrote:I care about this film and anyone else who takes the time to post must care at least a bit, positively or negatively.

I've seen this movie 5 times in the Theaters: 3 times in Imax 3D once in Real 3D and once on a plain small screen. I bought the Art of Prometheus book and I look forward to the audio commentary on the DVD when it comes out - I pre-ordered it from Amazon a long while back when I bought the art book.

I actually liked it best on the small screen - the images were clearer. The 3D effects are not all that extreme anyway even thought it was completely shot in 3D.

The visuals are stunning. The acting is pretty good. The story line is creative and controversial. There are a lot of scenes that don't make sense (scientifically) and there's a bit too much gore, but there is also so many stunning vistas.

The audio trailer re-mix music from 'Judge and Jury' by audiomachine in Deus Ex Machine is not in the film, but the soundtrack is quite nice, still. I wish it were more aggressive.

This has all the signs of a cult classic, but it is also quite well-made compared to the usual B-movie cult film.

EDIT: By the way if no one cares, why are there 383 posts on this thread? Is there any other film in the forum topics?

I agree with most of what your saying except the B-movie part, the genre may have originated in B-movie's but this is most definitely an A-lister, especially when your talking about construction. I'd go further and say the soundtrack was way too friendly and the gore is a must have.
And yes it has really turned into a movie people love to hate, soured expectations. Especially when what seems easiest to get right, script and story, yet again goes wrong.
Cinema twice, small screen once btw.

As anyone following the thread will know, I became a bit obsessed with this movie. I just bought the three video versions - one DVD for a friend, one Blu-Ray disc for another friend, and the Collector's Edition for myself. The standard DVD is minimal. Not many extras and no commentary. A few alternate scenes. I haven't opened the standard Blu-Ray. I've just about finished watching all of the Collector's Edition. There is so much more in that version - a whole extra DVD full of stuff. It also has two commentary tracks, one by Ridley and the other by the two writer's. There are several hours of documentary about the making of, where we see the typical work flow and a day in the life of Ridley. There are over a thousand stills - shots, posters, storyboards - I didn't see them all because you have to click 'next' to see each one. The Book 'Art of Prometheus' is not here, but many of the images are, though not all, I think.

There is nothing about the music, but just about everything else is covered in detail.

I won't give anything away, but I will mention two things that became very clear - Ridley Scott was a pretty laid back guy who allowed just about anything to happen, sometimes spontaneously. The major concern to him was that the end result must be visually stunning. The story writers mentioned that they felt it important to leave many ideas un-answered, because the human imagination can fill in more than what anyone could tell. Also they know it would make more fodder for the gossip.

The writer's documentary was made before the film was released, so there are several places where they say something like - we imagine people would react to it this way.

Another interesting quote from Ridley was that he preferred to built everything that he could - for two reasons. It was not cheaper to do things digitally and the actors work better in a real environment, not green-screen.

Most of the actors mentioned that going on the stage (which was the largest stage in Europe - and extended even more while filming) was awe-inspiring. There were Weyland logos on everything, even the boots. The space suits had lots of tiny LCD screens - they actually worked and showed the scenes we see in the movie. Incredible attention to detail.

Also it was clear that the story evolved and had many iterations and even some scenes were re-done after filming was completed.

EDIT: forgot to mention this - Ridley said he imagined there would be three movies in this series and he wanted to start work on the second ASAP.

arachnaut wrote:As anyone following the thread will know, I became a bit obsessed with this movie. I just bought the three video versions - one DVD for a friend, one Blu-Ray disc for another friend, and the Collector's Edition for myself. The standard DVD is minimal. Not many extras and no commentary. A few alternate scenes. I haven't opened the standard Blu-Ray. I've just about finished watching all of the Collector's Edition. There is so much more in that version - a whole extra DVD full of stuff. It also has two commentary tracks, one by Ridley and the other by the two writer's. There are several hours of documentary about the making of, where we see the typical work flow and a day in the life of Ridley. There are over a thousand stills - shots, posters, storyboards - I didn't see them all because you have to click 'next' to see each one. The Book 'Art of Prometheus' is not here, but many of the images are, though not all, I think.

There is nothing about the music, but just about everything else is covered in detail.

I won't give anything away, but I will mention two things that became very clear - Ridley Scott was a pretty laid back guy who allowed just about anything to happen, sometimes spontaneously. The major concern to him was that the end result must be visually stunning. The story writers mentioned that they felt it important to leave many ideas un-answered, because the human imagination can fill in more than what anyone could tell. Also they know it would make more fodder for the gossip.

The writer's documentary was made before the film was released, so there are several places where they say something like - we imagine people would react to it this way.

Another interesting quote from Ridley was that he preferred to built everything that he could - for two reasons. It was not cheaper to do things digitally and the actors work better in a real environment, not green-screen.

Most of the actors mentioned that going on the stage (which was the largest stage in Europe - and extended even more while filming) was awe-inspiring. There were Weyland logos on everything, even the boots. The space suits had lots of tiny LCD screens - they actually worked and showed the scenes we see in the movie. Incredible attention to detail.

Also it was clear that the story evolved and had many iterations and even some scenes were re-done after filming was completed.

EDIT: forgot to mention this - Ridley said he imagined there would be three movies in this series and he wanted to start work on the second ASAP.

I got the 4 disc collector’s edition so I can watch it in 3D.

It’s rare that I do this, but I think I will actually watch the extras on this.

I think it’s kind of hilarious that some people didn’t shell out the money to see it in theaters and instead shelled out the larger sum of money for the 4 disc blu ray version and then wrote reviews for what a POS they think the movie is. Still don’t get what everybody is hating on so whatevs.

just saw yesterday. i like it. my only real complaints...

#1 - can we have an extra pass in the "medical pod" to cauterize this gnarley wound or an extra bit of dialogue that explains how a woman who just had her lower abdominal muscles sliced open can run, jump... and.... here's the big one... pull her dangling legs up from hanging over a ledge, all with only staples and pain meds as the solution to the after math of her surgery an hour earlier.

#2 WTF is the point of making Guy Pierce get all dressed up to play an old guy that has a handful of lines? was there a shortage on old guys that act?


aside from those two things (the second one is trivial really) i thought the rest of the movie was pretty damn good.

sorry guys, i didn't read the other 25 pages before posting this. if that matters.